Topped Chef(58)

Her eyes narrowed as she studied my face. I tried to look open and trustworthy, at the same time I was panting. “Not Randy,” she said finally. “I don’t think so.” She shook the loose hair off her face and reset her headband. “Whoever did this was ruthless and powerful and very, very angry. To leave him like that?” She blinked away a sudden rush of tears and swabbed at her face with a towel.

This was exactly the warning that Torrence had given me about the killer. “What kind of man is he?” I asked. “Your husband, I mean.”

“Was he,” she corrected. She began to tick his characteristics off on her fingers. “He was a strong personality, brilliant in business and tireless in bed. Unfortunately, as you probably overheard, I was not the only recipient of those gifts. He wanted what he wanted and he didn’t mind lying or cheating to get it.”

“I’m so sorry. I had a boyfriend like that,” I added. Those few months with Chad were of course nothing compared to a long-term marriage where you’d promised in front of God and all your relatives to hold each other gently for life. And then gotten drop-kicked from heaven to hell when the rat bastard let you down. I’d felt shocked and outraged and embarrassed and furious—hard to imagine how she was coping. Hard to figure what was real in the façade she was showing, and what wasn’t.

“Does the name Buddy Higgs mean anything to you? He’s another one of the TV show contestants.”

I could have sworn her lips twitched, but she pulled them tight and answered: “Don’t know him.” She shook her head and gulped another swig of water. “Thinking back, I can’t imagine why that producer even asked Sam to judge food. Sure he owned restaurants and he loved hanging out at the bar and feeling like the big cheese, but he was no foodie. If I served him something new, he poked at it like I was trying to poison him. So you see he wasn’t altogether crazy.” She grinned. “More than once he asked to order off the kids’ menu—that’s what he was like when it came to food.”

Then her eyes widened until they looked like two dinner plates—like my mother’s Burleigh china, with all its shifting shades of blue. “Hayley Snow. You’re the one who slammed Just Off Duval. He was soooooo angry. The food isn’t that bad, is it?”

I lifted one shoulder and faked a smile. “I felt like I had to be honest about my experience. And I swear I gave it three tries…because I hate writing negative things about someone’s restaurant. I go in hoping I can give a good report. That’s the fun part of the job, spreading the word about great meals.” I was babbling and she wasn’t even cracking a smile.

My bicycle beeped, signaling that the fifteen minutes I’d programmed were up. According to the computerized display, I’d consumed fifty-six calories in this aerobic segment of my workout. Not even enough to counter a single café con leche.

“He was gunning for you, dear. You should be grateful that he’s dead.”

Mrs. Rizzoli tipped her chin and stepped off her machine, leaving me in a pool of guilt-ridden sweat. I knew writing negative reviews would hurt people’s feelings, but I didn’t expect they’d make someone want to kill me.

She banged into the TRX machine on the way out, leaving its pulleys and levers swinging like the rigging of a sailboat.





18


You’re better off peeling potatoes at a great kitchen than working saucier at a really mediocre place.

—David Chang



As I struggled off the scooter at Tarpon Pier, every muscle screaming, a text message came in from Peter Shapiro instructing the staff, chefs, and judges to gather at the Studios of Key West at two p.m. He planned to tape pick-up interviews to fill in slow spots in the show, which were many, according to Peter. Apparently he had no intention of closing the show down just because of one gut-sick fan.

Then I scrolled through my e-mail. I was reading a note from Mom about a new catering gig she’d landed and how much she wished I was there to act as sous-chef, when my psychologist pal Eric called.

“Just checking in,” he said. “How are things going?”

“I’ve been dying to talk to you, but I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of your vacation,” I said, feeling ridiculously relieved to hear his voice. I took a seat on the bench outside the laundry room at the head of the dock.

I needed to hash things over with someone, but I refused to worry Miss Gloria with every gory detail. And Connie’s life was so hectic these days, between her business and the wedding. Mom would have been happy to listen, but I try not to tell her everything. Not because she wouldn’t take my side, but more because she’d take it so definitely. And once my side was taken by my mother, there was no room for going back. Chad, for example, was doomed for life once Mom found out I’d discovered him in bed with another woman. She was a mother hen and I will still be her chick fifty years from now when we’re sharing a suite in an assisted living facility.